Writing for R3 Media since 2006, Chris Davies is currently executive editor for SlashGear and Android Community. Based in San Francisco, he's responsible for SlashGear's editorial decisions and covers all forms of consumer technology. You can follow him on Twitter.

Smart's distinctive - and divisive - new 2016 smart car is finally making its US debut, as the urban super-compact tries to convince an American audience to take its cutesy looks seriously. Launched in Europe last year, but not expected to show up on US forecourts until September 2015, the new smart fortwo will trundle initially onto the stage at the New York International Auto Show next week, complete with a mere 89 HP, all-new interior, and a choice of automatic or manual transmissions. Despite the updates, many of which see smart owner Mercedes-Benz attempt to position the 8.8 foot long car as a more premium option, the convenience factor is said to be even greater.

Huawei has fired out invites for the launch of its next Android smartphone, complete with some heavy hints that we should expect the Ascend P8. The event takes place in London, UK, on April 15th, and we're expecting to see a 5.2-inch handset most likely with an octacore processor, as Huawei makes a play for the top-end of the market.

Once upon a time, Android had the geek appeal and iPhone had the polish. If 2015 has any theme in mobile, it's the year when metal-bodied Android smartphones came of age. HTC has been plowing the aluminum fields for its past few generations of flagship, but it's only with the arrival of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge - and Samsung's inevitably huge marketing budget for the pair - that we can honestly say that Android has grown up in feel-appeal.

Facebook's internet-spreading drone has successfully completed its first test flight, paving the way to connecting the 3bn people currently without connectivity. The milestone is the handiwork of the Facebook Connectivity Lab, a team set up within the company by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, examining ways to bypass expensive and laborious wireline connections and instead take to the skies to beam the internet down from high altitude. And, while the test vehicle may look small, in actual fact Facebook's achievement is big both in the scale of its ambition and its construction.

Facebook may be best known for providing a route for former schoolfriends to annoy you with their baby photos, but the social site is also looking to bring the next generation of internet users online and give developers the tools to lure them. A combination of virtual reality, vast data centers, newly open-sourced coding tools, and innovative and less expensive web-delivery systems like drones were all on the agenda for Facebook’s second day F8 2015 keynote, along with how to teach an artificial intelligence about Lord of the Rings.

We still don't know what a smartwatch should - or shouldn't - do, but startup Olio is betting on just the right number amount of context and some serious timepiece quality. The Olio Model One, up for pre-order today, is the result: a chunky, touchscreen-faced smartwatch which eschews feature overload and instead focuses on what analog watches have been doing for hundreds of years: giving you the essentials at a glance. I sat down with founder Steve Jacobs to find out why he believes there's more to learn from traditional horology than just blunt case design, and how time saved might be the smartwatch secret.

Samsung has announced US availability for its flagship Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge smartphones, and what better way to celebrate them landing on the SlashGear review bench than an impromptu photo-shoot. Announced back at Mobile World Congress earlier this month, the metal- and glass-bodied Android smartphones mark the beginning of a new - and welcome - design direction for Samsung, swapping the plastic of their forebears for a far more premium feel. The S6 edge, meanwhile, raises the stakes with a double-curved AMOLED display. Consider the gauntlet thrown down well and truly to the iPhone 6 and HTC One M9; read on for our first-impressions.

Facebook raised a few eyebrows when a premature alert teased teleportation technology at today's F8 conference, but it's really virtual reality that the social network hopes to make its next killer feature. To herald the upcoming support of 360-degree virtual reality content right on your Facebook wall, the company was offering to "teleport" people from San Francisco to the company HQ in Menlo Park, courtesy of an Oculus-powered headset and a whole load of cameras. Still slightly disappointed at having put on my Star Trek uniform for no good reason, I found the reality of 360 VR might not live up to Mark Zuckerberg's enthusiasm, either.

Jaguar has taken the wraps off the new Jaguar XF, a new luxury sedan set to take on BMW's 5 Series and Mercedes-Benz's E-Class, and promising not only sports performance but economy too. Following in the tiremarks of the aluminum-centric architecture of the larger XJ, and borrowing the styling of the smaller Jaguar XE, the new XF has a near 50:50 weight distribution and uses the Configurable Dynamics system that debuted on the F-Type convertible and coupe. With that, Jaguar says, the rear-wheel drive XF should deliver the same stability as an AWD car. However, the company also claims, the XF will be capable of up to 70 mpg, though probably not in the US.

Thought Amazon would be ecstatic the FAA had given it permission to test its Prime Air delivery drones? Think again: Amazon execs have slammed the US government agency, despite finally getting the green-light. The Federal Aviation Administration delivered what it thought was good news last week, telling the online retailer that it could cautiously try flying its remote-control delivery drones in US airspace as a prelude to perhaps one day dropping off packages from the sky. Instead, it opened a can of worms, with Amazon claiming the FAA's tardiness meant it had already scrapped the prototype.